Friendly's Closes 23 Restaurants, Including One In Fairfield County

Friendly's is closing 23 more of its restaurants in the Northeast, including in New York and Connecticut.

Friendly's Ice Cream & Restaurant
Photo Credit: *Wikimedia Commons*

05/07/2019 2:46 p.m.

The closures will occur when the leases are up of the affected restaurants.

"While this was a tough decision, we are confident it will best position the brand for a bright future," Friendly's CEO George Mitchell wrote in a letter to franchise owners in April. "Especially difficult is the impact these closures will have on the locations' wonderful employees, who we are working to support with opportunities in other locations or severance payments and other assistance."

Fourteen of the closures for the Wilbraham, Massachusetts-based company are in New York, with all of them upstate.

Three Connecticut Friendly's affected: in Danbury (at 81 Newtown Road), Southbury (at 519 Heritage Road), and Waterbury (at 544 Reidville Drive), according to a list in the letter.

When Friendly's filed for bankruptcy in 2012 it had 254 restaurants. It now has 174 restaurants, 97 franchise-owned and 77 corporate-owned.

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